The age of physical music media objects is long over. ‘Record’ stores are out of business except for a few hold outs who now peddle rare and hard to find vintage pieces for collectors. Movies and television shows have held out a little longer, but VHS is already long gone, but soon even DVDs and BluRay are going away. You can get almost any movie you can name just by typing in the title to the media service of your choice. A few minutes later it’s playing on your device or TV. Instant service, anywhere, anytime. Except of course, you don’t have a good internet connection or a modern electronic device.

Amazon and other stores still do swift business in physical discs, repackaging shows into complete series box sets and including “DVD extras” that you just can’t get on Netflix. But how much longer will that last? How soon will “DVD extras” just be another link to click on in the title sequence?

I happen to work now in digital media, and it seems the reign of the physical DVD is slipping further everyday. But personally, I’m not quite ready to get rid of my physical objects. Part of it is I don’t always have good internet or I don’t want to be connected in order to watch something. Part of it is not trusting that I’ll always be able to get to something I bought on the cloud later on. With that said, my computer doesn’t actually have a CD/DVD drive in it, and I bought both a CD and a DVD recently that I am now pondering how I’m actually going play these items. (Foresight is not always my strong suit.) I’m not ready to give up having an object that I paid for in my hand (although I did for music pretty early on) but I’m getting close.

When I want to watch Sherlock for the umpteenth time I can do it on Amazon Prime, or I can stick the disc into my DVD player, it’s still at my fingertips in a literal sense or a metaphysical sense. I am instantly gratified. But I could use the extra space on my bookshelf (because no one will convince me to give up paper and print) for other things that I can’t get over the airwaves. What about you? Are you still a hold out for the boxed set DVDs or are you ready for everything to be invisible and yours?